KAMALA HARRIS’S MEDIA GAMBIT IS WORKING. Vice President Kamala Harris has done an impressive job lowering the bar on the question of how she will communicate her views to voters. As you know, Harris has not done an interview since a group of backroom Democratic Party insiders muscled President Joe Biden out of the race on July 21, leading to Harris’s instant elevation to Democratic nominee the next day. Yes, she has taken a few softball questions from her traveling press corps but nothing of any consequence. Needless to say, Harris has not done a news conference to take questions from reporters over an extended period of time. 

There are two reasons behind Harris’s strategy. One, she’s not a very strong candidate, not a good extemporaneous speaker. Why showcase her weakness? And two, staying away from the traditional venue for communication and scrutiny — that is, interactions with the press — has allowed Harris aides to float the idea that she has changed positions and moved to the center from her failed run for the Democratic nomination in 2019, when she was solidly in the progressive lane of the party. By using aides to float her new positions, she can put out words without putting her own face on them, leaving the impression that she has changed views without actually saying so.